1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electronic commerce system, and, more particularly, to an electronic commerce system which allows electronic representations to bear exchange values.
2. Description of the Related Art
There exist known techniques for allowing electronic information to include a property value and transfers goods through buying and selling or the like via an apparatus which performs input and output operations on the electronic information.
One prior art of such techniques is an electronic monetary system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,453,601. The contents of this patent are incorporated in this specification by the reference.
In this electronic monetary system, a liability due to overdrawing from an issuing band having an on-line accounting system is generated by the issuing bank in the form of an electronic representation of money.
This electronic representation includes the initial monetary value generated, and at the time of transferring this electronic representation for drawing or the like, a transfer record having the transferred commodity value can be included in the transferred electronic representation.
The “electronic representation” in this prior art represents an overdrawing-originated liability. When the liability is cleared by making a deposit in the overdrawn account, such an electronic representation is supposed to be cleared or invalidated.
To circulate such electronic representations as credited in the same way as promissory notes, information representing the account of the generator is included in such an electronic representation.
With an electronic representation including such information of the generator, the anonymity of the generator is hard to keep unless the generator's account can be opened anonymously. Therefore, it cannot always be said to be appropriate to use such electronic representations in transactions of a type which demands anonymity.
Even in the case where an electronic representation does not represent an overdrawing-originated liability, if generation of the electronic representation involves receipt and disbursement processes on a specific account, information on the contents of the receipt and disbursement processes remains in the electronic representation or a management record in the financial institution. Unless the account is anonymous; a problem similar to that of the case of an electronic representation indicating an overdrawing-originated liability would arise.
As a possible solution to the mentioned problem, one can employ a scheme of circulating prepaid cards each having recorded a personal identification number with which points representing the balance is associated, transmitting the personal identification number to a host computer or the like which manages the points of each personal identification number at the time of purchasing a commodity and reducing points equivalent to the corresponding value of the commodity then.
Transactions of prepaid cards are typically carried out through trading and it is easy to keep the anonymity of each participant in such a transaction. This scheme can easily keep anonymity at the time the personal identification number is transmitted as an electronic representation.
An “electronic representation” in this scheme, unlike the one in the prior art disclosed in the aforementioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,453,601, does not itself represent a monetary value. To find out the balance, for example, it is therefore necessary to access some means, which manages points, for collation with the balance.
It is difficult to logically separate such electronic representations from the means which grasps the current property value of each electronic representation (e.g., the aforementioned host computer that manages points) and circulate them the way money is circulated.